Checks distributed to those who registered after storm

Dec. 4, 2012

Aerial photo of damage caused by superstorm Sandy north of Seaside Heights. / Office of the Governor

Written by

and Todd B. Bates

What to do if you get aid from FEMA

Be responsible. You may use the federal aid money for housing and home repairs, but if you feel compelled to run to Atlantic City to put it all on 7 on the roulette wheel, you risk having to pay the government back. Keep receipts. FEMA does audit a certain percentage of aid recipients to determine if the money was spent properly. Audits can be done at any time within three years, so it is best to keep your storm-related receipts separate and in a safe place.

Source: FEMA

More

ADVERTISEMENT

Survivors of superstorm Sandy have a new catchphrase: The 2820.

As in: Did you get your 2820?

The number is the dollar amount — $2,820 — that the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent to many of the thousands of residents of destroyed or damaged homes along the coast since the Oct. 29 storm. The green government check comes in a white envelope with no explanation and, perhaps more surprisingly, no government forms to fill out. Others received direct deposit to their bank accounts.

Residents in Ocean County netted more housing assistance money — $108 million — than people in any other county in the state.

FEMA said the $2,820 reflects the fair market value for two months of rental housing for a two-bedroom dwelling in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Other rental assistance amounts are $1,135 a month for a one-bedroom rental, $1,955 for three bedrooms and $2,299 for four bedrooms, according to Chris McKniff, a FEMA spokesman.

People must register with FEMA to get housing assistance. But the check has surprised some people, including those who registered but never asked for rental assistance of any kind.

One couple is Raymond and Mary Saunderson. They evacuated their Surf City home along with thousands of others along New Jersey’s barrier islands before Sandy hit Oct. 29.

The couple stayed with Mary’s sister in Manchester for several days until it was safe to return to Long Beach Island. The couple registered with FEMA, but they found their home losses were minimal: a refrigerator and some tools stored in their garage. They were sent a check for $2,820 in rental assistance money.

Raymond Saunderson, 77, said the money should go to those who truly need it.

“You know, there are a lot of people who are without food, without lodging. I don’t think it’s right for me to keep it,” he said. He said he plans to try to return the check to the FEMA center in Harvey Cedars.

In an email, McKniff said in most cases he refers people with questions about returning unused or unneeded FEMA grants to Disaster Recovery Centers for instructions.

(Page 2 of 3)

A hurricane of cash

FEMA’s main job is to provide financial aid to disaster victims.

As of Friday morning, FEMA had given $243 million to New Jerseyans for housing assistance, which includes rental aid and essential home repairs, to 47,000 eligible applicants in New Jersey, according to McKniff. That comes out to an average of about $5,170 per applicant, which is one household.

The $108 million in Ocean County — about 45 percent of all the state housing aid so far — went to 18,500 applicants, according to McKniff.

Monmouth County ranked second, with $52 million distributed to 9,300 applicants, according to McKniff.

Aside from public reimbursements, FEMA provides money to individuals for two things: home repair and rental assistance. The maximum payout is $31,900 for any single housing disaster event. The maximum is usually sent to those whose houses were destroyed.

Most of the early money to individuals has come in the form of rental assistance, which can last 18 months, McKniff said.

Disaster assistance grants are not taxable income and will not affect eligibility for Social Security, Medicaid and other public assistance programs, he said.

Sorely needed

During the storm, flood water pushed and then slammed one house into 121 Florence Ave. in Union Beach.

And like residents around her, Susan Olsen, who lived in the damaged, but still-standing Florence Avenue rental house, found herself suddenly homeless.

She, her 18-year-old son Johnny and their mixed breed dog Socks moved in with the husband of her late cousin and their four children — all living on one floor of a Union Beach home that suffered a flooded basement.

The 48-year-old hospice home health care aide struggled at first with her claim to FEMA, but they eventually cut her a check for $2,820 to pay for two months rent.

“I would have been in a lot of trouble” without the money, Olsen said.

Olsen moved out of the crowded home in Union Beach and into an apartment in Keyport that wasn’t easy to find, she said.

“It was a gift from God,” she said. “The angels were with me.” The new rent costs $500 more a month than her old place in Union Beach.

(Page 3 of 3)

The $2,820 from FEMA will take her to Jan. 15, if her apartment on Florence Avenue is not repaired by then. If she has to stay in Keyport, she said she will ask FEMA for a rental assistance extension.

“Two months is not going to cut it,” she said.

Katrina redux?

But how closely is the FEMA money being watched?

FEMA came under fire after Hurricane Katrina for not watching the aid money carefully enough.

Matt Mayer, who during the Katrina recovery efforts worked as a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security that FEMA falls under, said FEMA has been criticized by the department’s inspector general for failing to put better oversight systems in place.

If FEMA is giving people checks or direct deposits without controls in place to make sure the money is spent on rent, “that’s a methodology that’s begging to be abused,” said Mayer, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation who examines Homeland Security issues at the conservative think tank.

He added: “What if you have two families who decide to bunk together and spend the money on whatever they want?”

The postmortem on Katrina revealed that people used FEMA-issued debit cards at strip clubs and returned merchandise bought with those cards to buy alcohol — widespread abuse at the time, Mayer said.

After the abuse was discovered, little effort was made by FEMA to get the money back, Mayer said.

“Once that barn door is open, the cow is gone,” he said.

Adding controls to prevent fraud and abuse would not slow down the arrival of aid, if done right, Mayer contended.

“That’s what FEMA was supposed to figure out,” he said.

A 2009 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, based on an undercover operation, said FEMA has made significant improvements since Katrina in preventing fraud, but it was still vulnerable.

“A persistent fraudster can bypass many of these controls by submitting fabricated documents to prove identity or address and as a result obtain housing assistance,” the report noted.

According to FEMA’s McKniff, survivors in areas most heavily affected by Sandy were identified beforehand and given two months’ rent at an appropriate fair market rate upon registering with FEMA.

Anyone applying for an extension must show receipts. And no one gets rental assistance money until they have registered and their damaged dwelling has been inspected, McKniff said.

Aid from FEMA for housing or other needs must be used for rent, home repair, personal property or disaster-related expenses and it’s essential that all receipts be kept in a safe place, he said.

Audits of recipients are periodically conducted after the disaster assistance process is over to ensure that money was used properly, he said.